Very cloudy pool

[Paige]

Problem: We purchased a house with a small 10500-gallon gunite pool. The pool was put in 4 - 5 years ago and well maintained as far as we can tell. We decided to get a head start and go ahead and get the pool open now while it's not blazing hot outside and be ready for when it is. We started out strong after hours of research. We scooped as much debris from the bottom as possible without being able to see it, brushed down the walls and shocked the pool and added an algaecide. We quickly (24 - 48 hours) went from the horrible dark green to a light teal color. It does still have the hint of green, but not the dark swamp it started out as. The problem is that it has always been so cloudy you can't even see more than a foot through the water. We have been doing at home tests and taking samples into the pool store for testing and after much work and way too much money we are still stuck with a creamy teal pool. The pool store is even out of ideas. We have also changed the sand out in the filter and greased the o rings. I am at my whits end here. I have meticulously checked chems and made minor adjustments to keep everything right and so our readouts at the pool store have been much the same every time we go in with fluctuation in the chlorine. We are also having trouble keeping the free chlorine levels up - it is ending up in the combined chlorine. It was up to 9 combined and .3 free and we used a nonchlorine shock and were able to get it to .5 free and 2.4 combined. This has been about a 2-week battle and we have run the pump 24/7.

FC: .5
TC: 2.91
pH: 6.7 (but I have made the adjustments to fix this, I just didn't want to add anything just before taking a sample)
TA: 77
CH: 179
CYA: 60
My pool: 10500 -gallon gunite
Pool chemicals: Chlorine
My pump & filter: Sand filter with fresh sand

I am thinking about using a flocculent tonight and vacuuming tomorrow to see if it helps... but I dont know what else to do.
photos:http://imgur.com/a/mhTlW

[Denniswiseman]

Hi Paige
You need to SLAM the pool
I don't have the link at the moment as I'm on holiday but look up www.troublefreepool.com and you will find the link and lots of other information to enable you to maintain a trouble free pool

[Denniswiseman]

Did You follow to the letter the Slam with relation to your Chlorine / CYA Chart
Your CC is indicative of an algae problem another filter will be a waste of money
Are you using liquid chlorine as pucks and granular add CYA rendering your chlorine inefective
For every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) added by Trichlor, it also increases Cyanuric Acid (CYA) by 6 ppm.
For every 10 ppm FC added by Dichlor, it also increases CYA by 9 ppm.
For every 10 ppm FC added by Cal-Hypo, it also increases Calcium Hardness (CH) by at least 7 ppm
A CYA of 60 requires a shock of 24 ppm. this has to be maintained (Shock Level and Maintain)
How are you testing, when maintainung you have to test many times a day to maintain the shock level, a FAS/DPD kit is required (Taylor K2006C or TF100)
You mention fish, how come, I thought we were talking about a pool. With any chlorine in the water would kill the fish

[marvinwalters]

Paige, how is your pool now? did flocculent and vacuuming work?